EtherCAT with MESA Input Cards Question

G'day Team,

Keep with me here as I try to unload the contents of my convoluted mind.

I bought a bunch of EtherCAT closed loop steppers with the intent of running them on a Mach4 system. The cost of the Mach4 EtherCAT software build was about $2k aussie (in addition to the computer), I looked at all of the shiny machine tools and things I could buy for that 2k and my faith was shook. Like an act of god, MetalMusings on YouTube released a raspberry Pi / EtherCAT / LinuxCNC video about two weeks ago, and I was off.

I've taken the last few weeks watching TheFeralEngineer's videos to understand the platform a bit more, really liking the look of ProbeBasic, working out which touch screens will work with LinuxCNC and psyching myself up that modern Linux builds have to be better than what I was made to use in university 15 years ago.

I think I'm pretty sorted here, for the most part; however, I am struggling to find appropriate componentry to get encoder inputs back into the computer. Basically, now that I'm going to switch to a control that can operate in a closed loop mode (with linear encoders), I feel it would be a waste not to captialise on that. This has lead me to realise encoder inputs for EtherCAT are incredibly hamstrung and you essentially have to buy an additional module for each encoder you want to run which come at exorbitant cost, especially compared to something like a PoKeys57E which can take 20 something encoders (if you want) on a $50 board.

So this whole thing has got me thinking, is there a way to run LinuxCNC over EtherCAT as well as using a Mesa PCI board for encoder inputs direct to the PC?

Alternately, does anyone know of a EtherCAT I/O device that has a bunch of encoder inputs in it as well, rather than having 32x I, 32x O and only a single encoder channel.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you can throw my way. If push comes to shove I'll run it as an open loop system like I would have with Mach4, but you know, scope creep....

Matt

Hello,

using ethercat and mesa in parallel is no problem.
There exists much ethercat hardware outside there..

I'm working with Beckhoff Components Example:

El5102, EL5112, EL5101 Encoder Cards ~150-300€
EM7004 Interface(4x Encoder, 16 In, 16 Out, 4x +-10V DAC) ~450€

Thanks for that, looks like I need to get a MESA Card now.

I'm looking to use 7 encoder channels (3 for a this old tony style MPG) and 4 for my axes (twin X) to provide closed loop. Each of those EtherCAT encoder modules only does one encoder and costs more than a MESA I/O board does, so I figured that getting an IO Board is the most cost effective way to do this.

I am surprised there isn't (yet) a low cost module that can take a whole bunch of encoders.

Thanks again!

Cheer for the further clarification and the suggestion with the ease board.

I've seen a few of those boards before (well that style, hats for RaspberryPi and similar for Arduino). It is something else I should consider. But again, when we look at the price, I might as well get a Mesa card and throw a whole bunch of stuff in directly to the PC.